Movies: Past, present and future

David O. Russell won't find gold with 'Drake's Fortune'

Video game junkies and fans of throwback adventures might have been at the very least amused, if not intrigued, by the idea of David. O. Russell taking on "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune."

As we wrote in May, the auteur was being considered for the director's chair on the Sony video game adaptation, which would have offered the prospect of the man who gave us the dark comedy of "Spanking the Monkey" and "Flirting with Disaster" rolling his sleeves up on material that had a lot in common with "Romancing the Stone" and the Indiana Jones franchise. (The game is about a descendant of Sir Francis Drake fighting his way to treasure and romance on a mysterious island.)

In the last few weeks, Russell, the studio and producers (Charles Roven of "The Dark Knight" fame is one) had been negotiating for Russell to come aboard. But the parties haven't been able to come to terms so they're going their separate ways, sources say. Producers and the studio are going back to the drawing board. They'll look for a new director -- and first they may even look for a star or two to join the project. (With the male and female co-leads, it's essentially a two-hander, so expect the casting process to be involved.)

What all this means is that even the faintest hopes that "Fortune" could be a 2011 movie -- Sony at one point had even thought about fast-tracking it for a release next summer --- have been extinguished. The studio wasn't immediately available for comment.

Russell, who recently walked away from the stop-and-start production drama of indie dark comedy "Nailed," has no hard greenlight for a new movie but does have a few projects in the hopper, including a dramedy with Vince Vaughn about a traveling salesman and his daughter, "Old St. Louis," that he's eager to get made and which could soon move forward. As for those trying to make a movie about treasure-seeking adventurers, they'll need to keep looking.

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David is a very talented director, but why would he want to make a movie based on a video game? Didn't anyone learn from the lesson of "Prince of Persia"? To recap for those not paying attention: it was a financial and critical disaster. Video games can have languid story-telling because the viewer is participating, not just occupying a seat in a movie house.

David, please, don't waste your time on projects like this; you've got an original perspective and an original voice in filmmaking. We deserve better.

I believe the Greatest choice actor to play Nathan Drake in the upcoming movie Uncharted Drakes Fortune would have to be James Roday, the main character of the Television show "Psych". Hands Down, He is not only the closest in resemblence to the Character Nathan Drake but judging by how well He pulls off the persona of His witty character Sean in "Psych" I believe he would be quite a shoe in.